Roger Chillingworth certainly did not have any advantages over Hester when it came to his physiognomy. His age was not the matter, but his "studious" look may have been one of the few redeeming qualities that Hester may have found to tolerably accept a marriage proposal from him.
He is far from the studious man that he used to be, however, and his anger, hatred and hunger for revenge is evident in his body as well as in his soul. Hawthorne has a very interesting way to word Chillingworth's change. In chapter 14, he goes as far as to suggesting that the medicine man's diabolical ways are responsible for the way in which he has contracted a new image that is entirely detrimental.
Old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a Devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a Devil’s office...
Hawthorne (the narrator) offers that this transformation of Chillingworth does not make him look scary, or even menacing. All it does is to make him even more miserably sad than what he is. Even Hester has strong words for him.
“What see you in my face,” asked the physician, “that you look at it so earnestly?”
“Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it,” answered she. “But let it pass! It is of yonder miserable man that I would speak.
It is clear that Hester can sense that all of this is a product of useless hatred. Of Chillingworth's own choices, which he should have never adhered to that way. Rather than letting go and moving on, he had to make a show of force so that his ego could be rectified.
Hester was alone 2 whole years thinking he was dead prior to getting with Dimmesdale. While she is not to be condoned for her actions, she has clearly not done anything to Chillingworth on purpose or to hurt him. This is why the author agrees that the entire thing is foolish.
This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture.
He certainly must be a very unhappy person to engage in such a campaign against someone he does not even know nor has done anything to him.
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